Hamilton Stone director Lisa Fenn led our work for Early Childhood Australia that explains how some children can experience exclusion from early learning. Exclusion is when some children and their families find it harder to access and participate in early childhood education and care than others. Exclusion may be deliberate or unintentional. It may result from the attitudes, opinions and decisions of individuals, or from structural causes such as the location and cost of services. However it arises, exclusion is not okay. Excluding some children not only hinders their learning and opportunities for development, it lets everyone else down.
The good news is that there are many ways for governments, early learning services and staff to act, that help overcome exclusion and ensure that all children can access and participate fully in early learning.